Inspiration - Do we find it or does it find us?

My husband had come to stand beside me in front of the window and, like me, was staring in awe at the magnificence of the view.

“What is that island?” I asked.
“I think its Eilean Munde,” he replied.
“Isn’t that where the MacDonald brothers buried their father after the massacre of Glencoe?” I replied. (Following the massacre of Glencoe, Alastair MacIan, the 12th chief of the MacDonald clan is said to have been secretly buried here by his sons.)
“Yes, I think it is,” he said, softly.
“I want to go to the village.”
“Well it’s not far from here, we can go after breakfast if you want," he offered.
“I would like that a lot, thank you,” I said, struggling to take my eyes off the island.
A gentle mist hung teasingly above it, obscuring it in parts.
I wanted, desperately to brush it away, and to see what mysteries it hid.

We stood on the quiet street that runs down the centre of the village of Glencoe.

Great mountains rose up around us as we wandered up a small hill towards the Glencoe memorial.
“What date is it?” I asked.
“It’s the 12th, why?” replied my husband.
“Well, tomorrow is the anniversary of the massacre,” I said, pointing to a sign on the memorial which read, ‘Massacre of Glencoe, 13th February 1692.’
I looked back down the hill and into the village.
Tidy little cottages lined the street. Grey clouds of smoke rose from chimneys and hung poignantly against the clear blue of the morning sky.
Suddenly I could smell it –

The sickly, metallic copper stink of fresh blood and death.
I could hear the terrifying crackle of flames as they leapt around the walls of cottages. I could see the smoke as it hung thickly and heavily in the air.
Cries of panic and terror as families stumbled from their burning homes; the blaze of musket fire, the sulphurous smell of a fired gun and the bodies which lay upon the snow filled streets.
Without realising it, I had found the inspiration for my story.